The book Arran; - Cook Clan

100 THE BOOK OF ARRAN
and his brother (whom we need not consider) in St. Giles
Kirk, and dismembered of all the fingers of his left hand.^
Patrick contemned the law, and despite being put to ' the
horn,' continued ' in his accustumat tred of murthure,
slauchter and uther odius crymes.' His record is black
indeed, for in addition to all the rest it is affirmed that there
are ' mony uther and odius wicked deidis committit bi him
upone his Majesteis peccable subjeitis, and speciallie within
the pairtis of Arrane, quhair he is appointit capitane of
Brody, oppressand sic as may not resist him baith be sey
and land.'
Now, being captain of Brodick, it falls to Lord John to
enter his servant before the Council for punishment, and
Lord John having failed to do so he too is ' put to the horn.'
But the sentence is suspended when Lord John explains that
Patrick is no servant or tenant of his and does not even
dwell on his lands. When informed that Patrick had gone
to Arran he sent forty of his friends under a Robert Hamilton
to apprehend the rebel, who, he declares, was lurking among
the country people. Patrick could not be found, so they
cleared out his wife and bairns from their possessions in
the island, and the factor had instructions to keep them out
so long as Patrick remained in rebellion. It was rather a
mean way of dealing with a difficulty.^ Patrick seems to
have held out, but he made an appropriate end when, on
April 2, 1595, he was killed in the town of Hamilton by
Sir John Hamilton of Lettrick. His widow married Paul
Hamilton, who appears in a case to follow as Captain of
Arran.
The next example reintroduces us to old friends, the
M'=Alisters, and suggests further the somewhat intimate
terms on which they stood towards the Hamiltons. In 1601
the Marquis had procured letters calling upon Robert Mont-
' Register of Privy Council, vol. v p. 87 ; Criminal Trials, vol. i. p. 286.
2 Ibid.